


From the Beginning

by frantic65



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-10
Updated: 2014-01-10
Packaged: 2018-01-08 04:21:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1128303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frantic65/pseuds/frantic65
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a less than fun time at Babylon, Brian reflects on the current state of his relationship with Justin and how it has evolved over their past few years together. Several years post-513. <br/>Written for this year's <b>qaf_giftxchnge</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	From the Beginning

**From the Beginning**

_You see, it’s all clear,_  
You were meant to be here,  
From the beginning.  
~From the Beginning by Emerson, Lake & Palmer~ 

 

I sat on the bed, chain smoking for the first time since my second fucktastic bout with cancer last year, but I didn't give a fuck at the moment. 

It was after 3 am and there was still no sign of Justin, which meant he was spending the night elsewhere after our little spat at Babylon earlier. 

"Temperamental bitch." I muttered, kicking off my shiny new Prada boots, and impatiently squirming out of my exquisitely tight leather pants; pants that had been hand-picked by the aforementioned temperamental bitch. But to be brutally fucking honest I was more annoyed at myself than I was willing to admit.

I flopped backwards onto the bed, propping myself up against the headboard, ashtray balanced on my stomach as I blew perfect smoke rings toward the ceiling. I watched them dissipate with a sense of malicious satisfaction and obstinacy, proving to my absent partner that Brian Kinney could still do whatever the fuck he wanted to, including sucking large amounts of nicotine into his lungs, health risks be damned. 

Of course, I immediately started to feel pathetically guilty, remembering how fucking proud Justin had been when I'd quietly quit cold turkey after round two with the Big C. 

He'd only been back from his Awesome Adventures in the City Tour for a few months when my annual checkup had flipped me the bird, showing a few anomalies on a subsequent chest x-ray that resulted in more tests, more surgery, and the always popular radiation fueled puking my guts out until I passed out on the bathroom floor. 

Ah, the wonders of modern medicine!

And the wonders of actually learning from my mistakes the first time around; letting Justin get involved in the entire bullshit with doctors and treatment options from the start. He's an obnoxiously controlling little shit on his best days, but from the moment I learned there was a problem with my blood work, he turned Pink Posse obsessed on the entire medical community. 

I'd felt like crap from the start this time, even before I had official confirmation on the cancer, and although I never panic, I admit that my initial reaction to the news was somewhat more pessimistic than before. Hell, I wasn't even forty and already I was working on being a survivor of multiple cancers. All I needed was a nice side of cirrhosis of the liver as the final nail in my coffin. 

But let's just say that Justin took control while I was distracted by my private pity party, and to my eternal surprise, I found out that I fucking liked it. He went to every appointment armed with a list of questions longer than Zack O'Tool's cock. He brought up alternative treatments he'd researched on his own, took notes on why things would or would not be recommended in my case, and was basically a ferocious beast until he was satisfied with the answers he received. 

Despite my own negative outlook, I found bad ass Justin to be so fucking hot we grew well-acquainted with the bathroom stalls in the various medical facilities throughout the greater Pittsburgh area, at least until sex fell disturbingly low on my list of priorities. 

I also discovered that I didn't object when Justin's control issues bled over into our   
personal partnership, especially after he decided one night that tying me to the bed using my favorite Armani silk ties, and fucking me into our mattress was his tough love way of lifting my spirits. 

Justin has been a toppy bastard pretty much from Day One, but he's also always worshipped my cock from the first time it reamed his tight virgin ass, a preference I'd always understood and agreed with myself. So it came as no surprise that the pathetically few times a choice had to be made between no sex due to my lack of...stamina while I struggled to survive my second nuclear holocaust, or considering a more creative approach, we resorted to a sexual role reversal in the bedroom. Suddenly, my ass became Justin's favorite place to hang his hard on, and I found I had no cause for complaint. Luckily for me, he had been trained by the best.

When things got really bad, and for quite a while, bad was an understatement, he simply looked me in the eyes, and waited patiently for me to hand him the reins for everything else in my life. There was a minimum of drama, which was a miracle in itself for a couple of fags; he simply pushed the hair back from my fever-soaked face, rested his forehead against mine, and whispered that he would take care of me until I was better. There was no doubt, no hesitation on his part, and I gratefully let myself fall, accepting him as my safety net from the big, bad fucked up world. 

Predictably, there were times I tried to unsuccessfully push him away, because the reality was that no one his age should have to put his life on hold for my tired, pathetic ass, but Justin's always been one of the few who could see through my carefully crafted bullshit. The fucker had balls of steel whenever I tried to shove him off a proverbial cliff, but sometimes it was simply a matter of pride and longtime bad habits that caused me to have a slight lapse in judgment where the lad was concerned. 

Which leads me to tonight's little fiasco at Babylon's Leather Ball. 

Although the days have long since passed when my appearance was a nightly event at the club, I did my best to support the various themed nights either through a carefully timed cameo or an occasional outright drugging and dancing tribute to my infamous youth. 

The Leather Ball was always near and dear to my heart, even though I had a rather large aversion to the muscle-bound Doms that seemed to stubbornly think I was still looking for a Daddy after all these years. Whatever Daddy issues I may or may not have, they do not include whips and chains. 

I had been given a clean bill of health a few weeks before the Ball, and I have to admit I was in a rather celebratory mood given the year I'd had up until that point. The shadows that had haunted Justin's youthful visage had finally disappeared, and we had fallen into a somewhat 'Honeymoon Phase' in response to getting some fucking good news for a change. 

I may have magnanimously agreed to indulge the boy by allowing him to call the shots for the night following a stellar blow job in the shower before we headed to the big event. Even with my mind pre-occupied, I knew what I was agreeing to, and one trick free night at Babylon was not a huge sacrifice on my part. 

So, as you may have guessed, I had to go and fuck things up...royally. 

We entered the club to the usual fanfare, neither of us ever completely forgotten in the gay mists of time in the Pitts. I let Justin lead the way since I had agreed to be his ' boy' for the night, and took full advantage of the view of his gorgeous glutes encased in tight beige leather, nipple ring glittering teasingly through his sheer mesh half-shirt whenever he turned to grin at me. 

I looked hot as well, and in deference to Justin's seductive wiles, I'd let him dress me in a short black leather vest, leather slave bracelets, and a tasteful silver collar. I'd drawn the line at a leash, but generously indulged his kink to see me with black eyeliner, although his appreciation for that little detail caused us to arrive a good 45 minutes later than intended. 

All in all, there was no doubt we were the hottest pair to cross the threshold that night, even amidst the dozens of bears and twinks alike that crowded the dance floor cum dungeon to honor the pleasures of leather. 

We headed to the bar, although I could tell by the hungry gleam in Justin's eyes that he would have preferred me face first against the back room wall, his cock shoved up my ass as he did his best to let my sweat and his saliva smear my fucking eyeliner across my cheeks. But he reined it in, there would be no fantasy role play starring me as a bottom even on a very special occasion like the Leather Ball. I smirked at him silently, raising my glass in a heartfelt salute to his self-control. He knew his reward would await him later at the loft.

After enjoying a few cocktails, he directed my throbbing-to-the-beat cock, and eternally tight, hot tail to the center of the crowded dance floor. Deciding to tease via slightly naughty "boy" behavior for my Dom for the night, I immediately found a muscle bound Alpha-type to grind up against, channeling my inner twink, someone who I'd firmly buried under my Stud of Babylon persona around the time I could legally drink and buy my own booze. 

I quickly found myself the tasty morsel between two hungry Bears, both no doubt thinking this was their lucky day, and salivating at the idea of making a meal of my ass. I may not be in my prime anymore, a fact I will never acknowledge to my grave, but being Brian Kinney still meant something in the Liberty Avenue gayborhood. 

So maybe I got a little carried away. I still have a well-known weakness for gorgeous men that worship at my altar, and I'd had a really fucking bad year. It felt really fucking good to know I could still attract the prime meat.

Of course, with hindsight being 20/20 and all that shit, I didn't realize that while Justin had come to accept my alpha male behavior in public situations knowing that his was the only dick I had allowed passage to the Kinney ass, seeing me appearing to offer said ass to not just one other man, but a dynamic duo, was more than the lad was willing to allow. 

So when Master Justin decided there was a little too much grinding, and not nearly enough bumping going on between my dance partners and me, he made a move to claim what he considered his....what has been his for many years now if I'm honest...and I reacted...poorly. 

I reverted to behavior that used to work very well when Justin was a 17-year-old boy desperate to please me, desperate to be invited into my bed, desperate to be the exception to my rules. But those days were long gone, and Justin, the magnificent man he had become, had nothing to prove, and promptly turned away and left me to my wicked ways when I sneered at the jealousy that I had deliberately courted, in my perverse attempt to show I answered to no one.

I plead temporary insanity. 

Or at least I would, if the little shit ever decided to get his ass back to our bed, which was fucking cold and empty without his PSA spouting self in it, hogging the covers, or clinging to me like a human starfish. 

As time passed, a small part of my brain that I wanted to smother with a pillow, started to whisper that maybe this time Justin was gone for good. He deserved better than my aging ass. He deserved someone closer to his own age, healthy and fun-loving, someone able to tell him that he is loved, someone willing to be faithful to him, someone willing to marry him. Someone that is not a damaged, used up, fucked up, piece of shit like me. 

When he left me there tonight, I couldn't help but think of a similar night so many years ago; a night he'd turned to another, a night I'd almost lost him forever because Brian Kinney never goes after anyone.

When 4 am arrived with neither sight nor sound of him, I decided that every rule has an exception, and that he had always been the exception to every one of my rules, even if it had taken me close to ten years to realize it. 

I threw on a pair of jeans and a sweater, rummaging in my closet until I found the one thing that would convince him I'd never take him for granted again. He'd seen me at my worst in more ways than one, and he'd always been willing to forgive me even when I'd barely conceded my own fault in all of the far too many situations. 

It was time I proved that I was worthy of the one ball I had left.

I caught a cab, having a pretty good idea where he'd be, and knowing the neighborhood, there was no way I wanted my car parked anywhere in the vicinity. 

Justin had a studio in one of the shittiest parts of town, perfect lighting and sheer stubbornness still winning out over common sense no matter how many times Mother Taylor and I tried to entice him to a less deadly address. 

I quickly made my way to his door, averting my eyes from anything that appeared to be a life form on my travels. He opened the door after one knock, and I frowned as I realized I heard no tumblers turning to indicate he had used any of the three locks I had insisted he have installed when he moved in. 

He immediately turned away and I hesitated in the doorway, clutching the item I had placed in my coat pocket before I left the loft to bolster my courage. He glanced over his shoulder and casually asked, "Coming in?", followed by "Shut the door" at my nod. I obeyed, being sure every deadbolt was firmly in place, even as a part of my mind went back to the night we'd met, and I was sure the irony of his use of those exact words wasn't lost to either one of us. 

I walked over to his workspace, where a large canvas was resting on top of a paint spattered table. I admired it for a moment, impressed as usual by his ability to pull so much emotion and beauty from what would simply be random streaks of color in a dripping mess on a smeared canvas by just about anyone else on the planet. But I hadn't stopped by to critique his art, and we both knew it. 

I stepped closer to where he was waiting somewhat impatiently with arms crossed for me to no doubt act like an even bigger asshole than I had already been this evening. My track record was just that good, and I couldn't blame him for his skepticism. 

I rubbed a nervous hand across my mouth, before meeting his angry glare head on. "I was wrong earlier tonight at Babylon." I started, and held back a smirk at his surprised expression. "Yeah, I know. What about 'No apologies, no regrets', right?" I moved close enough to touch him, but I didn't, his hands- off body language impossible to misread.

"I've come to realize quite recently," I continued, ruefully. "That while some rules are meant to be broken, others, like promises made to those we love, who've stuck by us not just in the best of times, but even more so in the worst of times, deserve a whole fucking lot more respect." 

He dropped his arms to his sides, and I took that as an invitation to reach out grab his hand in mine. "I'm sorry for treating you like less than what you are, less than what you mean to me." I was absolutely sincere, but I couldn't help feeling like I was about to sink completely into the world of bad romance novels. 

He placed a hand on my chest to keep me at bay, but I sensed his anger had cooled considerably, although not totally yet. "You know, we've been through a lot together, and I understand how tough the last year has been on you." He said, his expression slightly haunted. "On us."

He slid his hand across my chest and wrapped his fingers around my bicep, pulling me slowly in closer. "You'd think I'd be used to seeing you with other men. After all, you've been tricking since before we met, and you've only offered monogamy once." His breath ghosted across my ear as he leaned in, causing me to shiver, "But something has changed between us since you were sick this last time, and when I saw you practically letting those two fuck you on the dance floor, I guess I finally had enough. I was so fucking jealous that you would encourage two strangers to touch you like that when you were supposed to be mine tonight." He pressed a kiss to my ear before nuzzling his way down the length of my neck to my collarbone. "I'm not sorry for feeling that way though, Brian. And if we're going to continue to be partners, you'll need to understand that I'm going to continue to be possessive in ways that you may not like, or even want."

He steps away from me then, and I start to follow, wanting to feel his arms around me,   
suddenly more tired than I was during the worst of my treatments. 

"It felt good, you know." I can't help but confess. "To see that other men, hot men, still find me attractive." He shoots me a sad, soft smile. He is probably the one person in the universe who understands this about me. "But, it feels even better to know that I belong to you...that we belong to each other." I fumble for the box that's burning a hole in my pocket and decide to go for broke. There couldn't be a more sappy way for this evening to end anyway. 

I pull out the box, flip it open, and try not to laugh at the stunned look on his face. "Justin Taylor, I'm ready to commit to you 100%, mind, heart, and body. You've stood by me during the best and the worst times of my life, and nothing would make me happier than to make my ass, well, my entire package, yours exclusively. Please, say you'll marry me." 

He reaches out and touches the rings tentatively with one finger, as though afraid they'll evaporate into thin air if he puts too much pressure on them. 

"Jesus, Brian, are you sure?" His brow is slightly furrowed as his mind tries to wrap itself around my proposal. "Because if we do this, I'm going to assume you like me being possessive and jealous, but you won't pull another stunt like tonight, unless we plan it together and set some ground rules first." 

I take his ring out and push it onto his finger, motioning for him to reciprocate. "We can have an official ceremony later since I know you want to have a party and let your Mommy weep with happiness over her little boy becoming a married man, but for now, this..." I join our hands together, rings touching. "This is as binding as any other vow two people can make to each other. Agreed?" 

"Agreed." He answered, that Sunshine smile blinding me until I closed my eyes and caught his lips in a kiss that quickly went from soft and gentle to wet and filthy in about two seconds flat. 

But then that's always the way it's been for us from the beginning.


End file.
